Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[CGVT]

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[THE_WIZARD_]

...and The Chairman is "The Big Guy"!

[iam416]

I mean, she’s crazy. But, you know, JIM CROW IN STEROIDS!!!! VOTER SUPPRESSION!!!

[Dr. Strangelove]

It would appear the wretched Talent, hiding away in his study to avoid his despised relatives, craves my attention and seeks to bait me with one culture war “outrage” after another. That dog won’t hunt, you poor man’s F Lee Bailey.

I spent the better part of the afternoon driving up to the Cleveland area. The highways in Columbus are in MuCH worse shape than up here.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Krazy Kari did in fact lose her case. Judge found there was no evidence that machine failures cost her votes or that anything was intentional.

A big lump of coal delivered to election fraud grifters right on Christmas Eve! O holy night! O night divine!

[Dr. Strangelove]

Many a Republican in Arizona has good cause to fear a visit from Krampus this chilly Christmas Eve!

[iam416]

DSL is going to Cleveland? Is Pharaoh oppressing some people in Lorain? Surely this plague will do the trick. Fuck that 10 plague shit.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Jeff Buchanan]

While I'm a committed interventionist vis-a-vis Ukraine, I find the arguments against it persuasive. I've been harping on the argument that US involvement IS a matter of national strategic import; a battle between authoritarianism and liberalism, freedom and enslavement. I read two essays/opinion pieces today, one in the NYTs and the other in the Atlantic. I'm very much aware of the liberal leanings of staff writers in both publications. What both had to say seem to rise above the typical polarizing politics present in American culture.

George Packer in his Atlantic essay argues that a fervor for liberalism and freedom was foundational to the emergence of America from under the thumb of King George III and his taxes on colonialist. This same fervor for liberalism and freedom is also foundational In Ukraine's emergence as a stable democracy following the Maiden Revolution in 2014. Ask any Ukrainian what this war with Russia is all about and they will tell you we are fighting for freedom, our sovereignty, the right of the people to elect their own government. This is an American birthright - Reagan's, "the shining city on thill" - and it stands in stark contrast to the brutal, repressive authoritarianism of Russia's Vladimir Putin and China's Xi Jinping, among other leaders on the global stage of that ilk.

David Brooks, in his NYTs piece opines that. the US supports Ukraine not only out of national interest — to preserve a stable liberal world order — but also to live out a faith that is essential to this country’s being and identity - an American birthright. The thing that really holds America together is this fervent idea" It is this fervor for liberalism (democracy) and freedom that binds Ukraine and the US. The US that can still serve as the "bright city on a hill" and Ukraine, struggling for both, facing a brutal authoritarian that represents the antithesis of these ideals.

That's nice. Still isn't going to move some to support the US government in spending trillions to provide Zelenski the where-with-all to stymie the Russian armed forces and force negotiations favorable to Ukraine. Also importantly, not to let Putin break every rule that has governed the world order since the end of WWII without accountability for that. If you want to see US hegemony devolve to a multipolar world that both Xi and Putin want and what a rule by these two hegemons might look like, you only have to look at what they have wrought: millions of COVID deaths in China due to Xi's failed "ZERO COVID" public health policy or Putin's terrorizing of Ukrainian civilians with constant bombardment, the destruction of non-military infrastructure and the brutal murder of thousands of civilians in Ukraine. This is an in the unapologetic pursuit of his aims to conquer and govern that country.

To fully embrace US intervention in Ukraine requires a quick review of America's interventions since the end of WWII. To put it simply, Packer argues in his Atlantic piece that since 1950, American interventionism has varied between full throated exuberance and fence sitting restraint. After failures to achieve the desired outcomes from military intervention, retrenchment in US FP typically follows and if the US does intervene militarily, it is over cautious, highly restrained and often producing bad outcomes. Is there a balance?

Packer argues in his Atlantic piece that the Biden administration may have found a balance between full throated exuberance and fence sitting restraint in Ukraine. Biden may have stumbled onto a path to resolve two hard and conflicting truths of exercising American power: Autocratic regimes will exploit American restraint to enlarge their own power. This will come at the expense of their own people, their neighbors, and the international order. But American over-action as in full scale military involvement will stoke illiberal reactions when it results in the elevation of unintended authority, not freedom. You only have to think about Iraq and Afghanistan to visualize the later, all of the African continent to visualize the former.

The middle path between full-throated military intervention and sitting on the sidelines is the one the US is pursuing in Ukraine. Obviously, I'm on board. Arm them but restrain it to the extent necessary to prevent an endgame that involves post war domination of Ukraine by unintended authority. Where democracy exists, and make no mistake it does in Ukraine and Putin doesn't like it, strengthen it and defend it against foreign subversion, if necessary with arms. Where it doesn’t, like in Iran, take care to understand particular movements for change, and offer only support that preserves their legitimacy. Align U.S. policy with the universal desire for liberalism and freedom, but, at the same time, maintain an awareness of the potential for unintended consequences. In purusit of this middle path, have no illusions of easy success in Ukraine or elsewhere. Be confident that America can bring the light of freedom to Ukraine and elsewhere. Reject isolationism that thinks the world will be better off if America just stops trying.

[Hannibal]

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[Jeff Buchanan]

"Putin says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine."

This is the headline from a Reuters news release this morning. The news release quotes Putin doing an interview on state broadcast media. It's nothing new. For those that aren't following this closely, it's important to understand how differently Putin and the Russian speaking people in both Russia itself and in eastern Ukraine view the war in Ukraine compared to the west. The particular viewpoint of the war that Putin holds is also held by somewhere around 30-40% of the rest of the world outside the west as defined by the NATO allies and other countries that side with the west's view.

Putin is not crazy, he is not being contextually unrealistic. It is my contention, supported by Russia analysts that know Putin better than I, that he believes Ukraine has never been an independent nation and is an inseparable part of Mother Russia. He further believes that the west, particularly NATO led by the US, has been trying to "tear apart" and defeat Russia continuously since 1990 and the fall of the Soviet Union. I could go into the history of Ukraine and NATO's behavior toward the Kremlin that would dispute Putin's beliefs but I've already done that.

To us, Putin's position is characterized as propaganda, not based on any recent history and his message to Russian citizens twists reality. For Putin and for Russians who support his invasion of Ukraine and the basis for it, it is their reality even though such reality harkens back to Peter the Great's expansion of the Russian empire which did include Ukraine. The reason for that viewpoint is that the Zelenski government wants its legally established borders to be restored to the pre-2014 delineations. That goal is supported by the post WWI and II borders between the sovereign states of Ukraine and Russia. That means Russian forces imposing military and administrative control of the 4 Oblasts Putin recently declared as part of Russia, plus Crimea, have to leave.

One can understand these two drastically opposed demands are not amenable to serious negotiations by either side. IMO, solutions to the standoff involve forcing conditions on Putin that make his military operation - including both administrative and military components - unsustainable. Of course, Putin articulates the Russian people are "99.9%" supportive of the aims he is pursuing vis-vis Ukraine. How far the west is willing to go to bring that circumstance about isn't entirely clear and an ambiguous policy is one that allied governments have chosen to pursue.

It is likely the next 6 months will be definitive for one side or the other. Everything I read regarding the situation in the battle space and assessments of Russians capability to sustain war time operations in Ukraine are unfavorable for Putin. I also think such assessments are biased and It has become very difficult to determine what is real and what is not. At this point it is not certain which side will blink first.

[THE_WIZARD_]

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That is probably in DSL's parents yard...

[Mike]

Merry Christmas, fuckers!

[THE_WIZARD_]

Merry STFU.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This morning the Ukranians hit Russia's Engels airbase for the third time reportedly with drones. 650 miles from the border with Ukrain, SW of Moscow. Moscow reports 3 dead, light aircraft damage from debris after the drone(s) were shot down.

A 1/2 truth for sure. Drones are launched in multiples - to tie up air defenses allowing some to get through. Video on line shows multiple big explosions on the ground. Not debris. They'll be some satellite imagry available publicly but any damage will be quickly moved or cleaned up by the Russians.